The art of criminal justice

Panel wise abstracts/bios

1. Theatre of the Oppressed, Youth Resistance, and Armed Conflict (Dr Roxana Willis)

You can view the recording of this presentation below. Please note, the BSL interpretation of this event was recorded during a live interaction, and may contain errors due to the nature of the content, and/or speakers being unknown to participants. The intention is always to provide a true and accurate interpretation and is tailored purely to the needs of the people present. Please bear this in mind when watching the recorded version.

Click here to download Dr Roxana Willis' presentation slides

Theatre of the Oppressed is a philosophy and practice developed by Augusto Boal, which has the potential to empower marginalised persons in criminal justice research. In this talk, we assess the challenges and potential of running remote Theatre of the Oppressed research in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic and insecurity generated by the conflict in anglophone Cameroon. 

The talk is presented in the style of a journey, beginning in Cameroon, where a group of youth artists, La Liberté, introduce us to the Theatre of the Oppressed. We then travel onwards to India to work with the Centre for Community Dialogue and Change, refining our Theatre of Oppressed methodology through engagement with a range of communities. This brings us back to the UK, where the Centre for Community Dialogue and Change shares their practice with children excluded from mainstream education. Finally, we return to Cameroon to perfect the method. But when we arrive back, armed conflict is rife. 

In some ways, the barriers of the pandemic have created unexpected opportunities, such as skills-sharing across four continents. Yet can Theatre of the Oppressed empower children to be heard safely amid an ignored conflict and relentless violence?

Bio: Dr Roxana Willis is the Principal Investigator of the Cameroon Conflict Research Group and a Lecturer in Criminal Law in the Faculty of Law, University of Oxford. Before joining Oxford, Roxana spent two years working as a development advisor in the North West Region of Cameroon. Roxana holds an LLB in Law with European Legal Studies from the University of Kent; an LLM in Economic Inequality Law from the School of Oriental and Africa Studies; and a DPhil in Law from the University of Oxford.

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2. “Is it even art?”: Rap Music in Court (Dr Lambros Fatsis)

You can view the recording of this presentation below. Please note, the BSL interpretation of this event was recorded during a live interaction, and may contain errors due to the nature of the content, and/or speakers being unknown to participants. The intention is always to provide a true and accurate interpretation and is tailored purely to the needs of the people present. Please bear this in mind when watching the recorded version.

Rap music is frequently summoned to stand trial for inciting violence, glamourising outlaw lifestyles and causing violent crime. Perceived as dangerous, rap is pursued and processed as such by the police, prosecutors and judges—without interrogating the prejudicial assumptions that lead to its discriminatory suppression. Focusing on various hostile, illegitimate, discriminatory and unjust tactics that the UK criminal legal system uses against the latest rap subgenre (UK drill), this presentation exposes stereotypical associations between UK drill music and “criminality” that turn rap into criminal evidence in court; combining scholarly research and first-hand experience as an expert witness in murder trial cases that rely on drill lyrics and videos to bring charges against rap(pers).    

Bio: Dr Lambros Fatsis is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Brighton, specialising in police racism and the criminalisation of Black music subcultures—fusing Cultural Criminology with Black radical thought. Parts of his research have been published by Crime Media Culture and The Sociological Review as well as in blog articles for the British Society of Criminology blog, for which he won the first-ever ‘Blogger of the Year Award’ in 2018. His forthcoming publications include: Policing the Pandemic (co-authored with Melayna Lamb) and The Public and Their Platforms (co-authored with Mark Carrigan), both published by Bristol University Press.

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3.The art of innovation? Effecting change in police custody through theatre and animation (Dr Layla Skinns, with Charlie Barnes)

You can view the recording of this presentation below. Please note, the BSL interpretation of this event was recorded during a live interaction, and may contain errors due to the nature of the content, and/or speakers being unknown to participants. The intention is always to provide a true and accurate interpretation and is tailored purely to the needs of the people present. Please bear this in mind when watching the recorded version. We apologise that we were unable to record BSL interpretation from 22:50 onwards for this video. We are working to fix this issue and will post an updated version of this video as soon as possible.

Click here to download Dr Layla Skinns' presentation slides

There is a lengthy history of organisations such as the Koestler Trust and the National Criminal Justice Arts Alliance using art and cultural interventions with prisoners, ex-offenders and those at risk of becoming involved in crime to effect change, recognising the power of art as a springboard for innovation and for envisaging a different future. In this paper, however, I explore the potential of art – in particular theatre and animation – to effect change amongst criminal justice practitioners. To do this, I draw on the ‘good’ police custody study. In particular, I examine the process by which good practice recommendations from the research were brought to life through a theatre production, ‘I am Human’, in collaboration with Dead Earnest theatre company. I also explore how and why this play was subsequently transformed into an animation and the ways in which both the play and animation have been used to impact on the policies and practices of police custody staff, all in the midst of a global pandemic. In so doing I examine the transformative potential of art, concluding that the art of criminal justice is also potentially the art of innovation.

Layla Skinns Bio: Layla is a Reader in the Centre for Criminological Research, School of Law. She has a longstanding interest in police and policing, in particular in how policing agents use their authority. A key focus of her research has been on police detention, in England and Wales, but also in other parts of the Anglophone world. In this setting, she is interested in police powers and their relationship with the law, police cultures and police discretion, and furthermore, how this impacts on equality and on state-citizen relations. She is also interested in how the public – particularly detainees – perceive the police, which links her research to discussions about police legitimacy and ‘good’ policing.

Charlie Barnes bio: I am currently the Creative Director at Dead Earnest theatre. Originally, I trained as an actor (and still occasionally perform!) but now work predominantly as a writer and director. I’ve written and directed approximately 50 original short plays – many of which are ‘forum’ theatre in style. I really enjoy working in collaboration with partners from a variety of backgrounds to develop original theatre, short films, radio plays and more recently animations. I also lead workshops with children, adults, and marginalised groups and work as a guest director and Associate lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. For more information, or if you’d like to chat about potential partnerships, please feel free to send an email to info@deadearnest.co.uk.

Working with Layla Skinns on I am Human has been a brilliant experience for Dead Earnest and for me personally, as the subject matter is so rich for creating powerful and hard hitting drama. A ‘meeting of minds’ has meant the process has flowed – despite the challenges of a pandemic! And the fact that we have been able to adapt the original stage play to a radio drama and animation during lock down is something that we both feel proud of.

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Event chair

Dr SJ Cooper-Knock is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sheffield. SJ's research interests include: everyday policing and punishment; the politics of crisis; and urban justice. Their work primarily focuses on South Africa.